Ashton Kutcher fights to end human trafficking in emotional testimony to senate

Actor Ashton Kutcher made an emotional speech on Wednesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington. Kutcher is the cofounder of Thorn, an anti-human trafficking organisation that builds software to fight the sexual exploitation of children.

In the testimony Kutcher lists horrific things he’s seen happening to children across the United States and the world — from Cambodia to Mexico, to New York and New Jersey. He even cites a video he saw of a child his daughter’s age being raped by an American man, who “thought she was engaging in play.”

“The right to pursue happiness for so many is stripped away, it’s raped, it’s abused, it’s taken by force,” Kutcher said. “I’ve been on FBI raids where I’ve seen things that no person should ever see.”

Kutcher hopes to find funding for Thorn so he can continue the fight to protect human rights and stop human trafficking. He emphasised the extreme importance of using technology to fight the war against the sexual exploitation of children.

“Technology can be used to enable slavery, but technology can also be used to disable slavery,” he said.

Kutcher also noted that in the past six months, Thorn identified 6,000 trafficking victims, and 2,000 of them were underage.